


little ghost, we can make something beautiful (I was meant for you, and you for me)

by ofstardustandthimbles



Series: strange birds [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Peter Pan & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, There's tinklix if you squint, rufio/tigerlily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 08:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3802795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofstardustandthimbles/pseuds/ofstardustandthimbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The adults come to rescue the Truest Believer and destroy the dark empire of Neverland, but one cannot kill what already has been dead. </p><p>To live would be an awfully big adventure. </p><p>[complete]</p>
            </blockquote>





	little ghost, we can make something beautiful (I was meant for you, and you for me)

**Author's Note:**

> For April. Thank you for sticking with me all this time, you're the best!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Peter Pan, Once Upon A Time, Hook, or Tiger Lily. All credits go to their respective owners. 
> 
> Title credit to Strange Birds by Birdy. 
> 
> 1\. WARNING: Violent themes ahead. This does NOT have a happy ending. Proceed with caution.

_To die would be an awfully big adventure._

* * *

 

           

            His shadow once warned him about the curse of Neverland. The island makes him forget and it cannot last forever, for what can last forever? Neverland thrived on the imagination and laughter of children, but the island was dying. Imagination was gone and the laughter only resulted in tears at the war that raged in the outside world. Fire fell from the sky and cities were reduced to ashes. The children were lost and never found. Mustard gas filled their lungs and the ground was littered with rotting corpses.

            The more the Pan tried to remember, the more his mind drew a blank. Why did he run away to Never Neverland? Surely there had to be a reason. Did he have parents? Of course he did, otherwise he would not have been born. He couldn’t remember, but all he knew was that Baelfire was his brother and that he wanted to protect his father. Was there a reason why he wanted to protect his father? Was he the reason why he ran away to the island? The Pan didn’t know, and it drove him insane that he knew nothing. The memories were fading in to nothing.

            The Pan spent days alone in the old tree house, trying to remember the artist of the paintings in the wall. He struggled to remember the ghost of a girl who taught him to catch arrows and the boy who shielded her with his heart. It frightened him; how could he forget his friends? How could he have forgotten? What if years from now, the island faded in to dust?

            Skull Rock held the golden hourglass that marked the time that was left before Neverland disappeared beneath the waves. The Shadow whispered that in decades, a special boy will be born. His heart would save the island, the Heart of the Truest Believer. Magic would be restored and the island will prosper once more. He would be forever young.

            The thought of carving someone’s heart repulsed him. The Pan pushed his shadow away and flew to the tree house with his head bowed in his hands. He couldn’t even stomach the action of ripping out his own heart, what made his shadow think that he could do that to someone else? The boy is innocent. Is the heart of the boy worth saving his home? The Pan was always so sure of himself, but now, even the ever so confident Peter Pan hesitated.

 

[♜]

 

            White birds were nonexistent in Neverland save for the Never bird. Not many have seen the Never Bird; the bird was hidden in the jungle, but it was rumored that the bird held white soft feathers that was brighter than light itself. The Never beast was seen often, a fowl wolf that lurked in the night but stayed away from any signs of human life. No one bothered the Beast, and the Beast bothered no one.

            Nibs hurriedly climbs the tree with outstretched hands, reaching for a ball that was caught in the canopy of the trees. The boys below him shouted and urged him on, but his arms were a breath short. His arms once lanky and thin as a branch were stronger, but they were covered with cuts and bruises from hunting and fighting the pirates when they once docked in Neverland.

            His fingers barely grasped the net when a flutter of white crosses his peripheral vision. The boys beneath him fall silent at his sudden stillness, his brown eyes fixed on the white speck floating in the night sky.

            _“The Wendy bird is back,”_ Nibs whispers. _“She’s here.”_

            The Pan too saw the Wendy bird. Her presence was automatically sensed the moment her wings were spread. Quickly, the Pan climbed down the ladder and ran to the shores of the island. The Lost Boys stood at the shores, but when he arrived, their heads were bowed. The Pan rushes over and the boys quickly depart. At their feet was not the Wendy bird, but a dead white bird with its neck snapped in two.           

            _“Is she ever coming back?”_ One of the Twins asks in a quiet voice.

            His brother slaps his arm in warning, afraid that the Pan would take his anger out on him. To his surprise, the Pan turns to the Twins and kneels to their level, grasping his bandaged hands in his like an older brother caring for his younger sibling.

            _“I don’t know,”_ the Pan says his voice barely above a whisper. _“I don’t know.”_

            But that is not to the case.

            In London, the last of the Darlings are kept behind an iron door. The two boys scream and pound on the glass as the car leads them towards the orphanage as their older sister is trapped in a strait jacket in the asylum. Their father’s lungs were filled with mustard gas and their mother was hidden in a pile of cadavers in what was left of the city.

            It was three days later when the nurses found the room empty with blood on the walls. The silver tray clattered to the ground as her screams echoed throughout the asylum. What was left of Wendy Darling was a chunk of golden hair left on the silver ground and the open window.

            Wendy never found her brothers, but her body was found asleep in Kensington Gardens. When she woke, a figure in a pied cloak sat besides her playing the sad lullaby from his pipe. She took his hand without hesitation.

            The light was so bright when she found her way to Neverland with the pied piper guiding her. She wasn’t sure if it was real. The drugs the nurses injected in her made her do unthinkable things that scared her. This wasn’t Wendy. Who was Wendy? She didn’t know. Was the pied piper a hallucination? Did she really escape the asylum?

            But when she opened her eyes, the island was so beautiful as it sat in the light of the moon. Tears pricked her eyes as the chills ran down her shoulder blades. Wendy bit her lip to stifle a sob that threatened to spill from her mouth, but one by one, the tears cascaded down her cheeks like a soft rain fall. The pied piper held her close as they flew to the shores.

            _“Welcome home, Wendy.”_

 

 

            The Pan sits at the rocks where the tiger lilies and the red poppies blossomed in the moonlight. It was a blue moon and Tinker Bell had sat with him before Felix came to ask for her hand. He watched with a small smile as the faerie followed his lieutenant out of the cave and on to the shores where the Lost Boys danced with the fire as their only source of light aside from the waxy moon. The silhouettes of his two closest friends calmed him as Felix twirled her in his arms, listening to the sound of their laughter over the waves crashing on the shores. The Pan looks away and stares at the open sea, fiddling with the pan pipe in his hands.

            A tap on his shoulder surprises him. He jumps and turns. Wendy stands shyly behind him draped in his pied red cloak with dark circles heavily drawn around her eyes and her cheeks flushed a soft shade of pink.

            _“S-sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,”_ she says quietly.

            _“It’s okay,”_ the Pan smiles lightly at her. _“Sit with me?”_

            Her clear eyes dart from the spot beside him to the fire at the shores. After a moment’s hesitation, she quietly sits beside him with a gap between their two bodies, as if they were waiting for someone else to sit in that empty space. The Pan watches her carefully as she stares at the calm waters that expand from the island to across the entire world. It was terrifying to think that the island was insignificant to the countries that ruled the world.

            The Pan carefully pulls the hood of his cloak over her head when she shivers at the ocean breeze. Wendy flinches at the touch, and the Pan automatically mumbles an apology as he recoils to his spot on the rock. Her blue eyes curiously peek at him from beneath her uneven hair. The air is tense and thick around them, and the memories they had from when they last encountered each other were not pleasant.

            But her gaze falls on the thimble around his neck. She looks away before his eyes catch hers.

            _“I once thought that Never Neverland was make-believe,”_ Wendy says after a few silent moments. She laughs bitterly. _“How foolish of me. The island is real. You’re real, and I’m real.”_

            The Pan says nothing, but his ears are open to her words.

            She looks up at the moon. _“I wanted to stay. I refused to believe that you stopped loving me, I refused.”_ Her lips quiver and she swallows hard, her voice wavering. _“I wanted to stop loving you, but I couldn’t. I just can’t unlove someone who gave me something to remember.”_

            Wendy angrily brushes away a stray tear and sighs heavily, her eyes fixed on the reflection of the moon in the water. _“I never stopped. People told me it was a dream, but it wasn’t. My parents are gone, my brothers were taken from me and Baelfire is gone too.”_

            His heart splinters at the thought of his younger brother. He looks away.

            _“You still wear my thimble.”_ Her thin fingers trace the thimble resting on his chest. The Pan slowly turns to her, his eyes red and swollen.

            _“Tink once told me about giving people second chances,”_ he says softly, _“second chances are miracles, she said. Do you believe that?”_

            A small smile tickles her lips as she lets out a breathless laugh through her tears. _“I do.”_

            The Pan smiles lightly at her, brushing away a tear with the back of his hand. Wendy catches his hand with a small frown. _“Boy, why are you crying?”_

            He chuckles lightly and looks down. _“Because I need a second chance.”_

            Wendy watches him for a moment before standing. The Pan glances up at her with a puzzled look on his face when she curtseys.

            _“I’m Wendy Moira Angela Darling.”_ She says with a coy grin.

            The Pan laughs as he stands and bows a gentleman’s bow. _“I’m Peter. Peter Pan.”_

            Their laughter echo as they leave the cave. For the first time in decades, the stars laugh and hold them close. His shadow disappears beneath the waves of the ocean.

           

 

* * *

 

 

            The Pan believed that his shadow had left the island for quite some time. After months of dead silence from the ghastly figure since the return of the Wendy bird, everyone thought his shadow had disappeared, but he was always lurking. He watched as the Pan began to wilt in the sunlight of the bird. His skin turned a ghostly pale and his cough turned in to a constant fire burning in to his lungs. A storm raged in his throat and his bones shook like an earthquake trembling beneath the core.

            Tink was the first to notice. The Pan slept in his own tree house near Hangman’s Tree and isolated himself from the rest of the Lost Boys. He hated being vulnerable and an open wound for everyone to observe the blood pouring through. Before the faerie could reach him on the dusty floor and charred paint of the tree house, she already heard his coughs and groans.

            _“I’m fine,”_ the boy king snapped at her when she entered with eyes wide in alarm. _“You don’t need to protect me from whatever this is. Stay away from me before you catch it yourself.”_

            The blonde narrowed her eyes at him. _“You don’t tell me what to do.”_

            He snorted and looked away.

            _“How much longer?”_

            _“Days, weeks,”_ the Pan laughed bitterly. _“Does it matter? The island is_ dying _, and so am I.”_

 _“And so are_ we _!”_ Tink argued defensively. _“You’re not the only one suffering, Peter! Our home is dying and what are you going to do about it?”_

            _“Shit, I don’t know!”_ The Pan shouted as he stood, his hands fisted at his sides.

            His faerie observed him coolly with her clear glassy eyes. Her lips turned in to a bitter smile as she shook her head.

            _“You’re a horrible liar,”_ Tink whispered, and then she left.

[♜]

 

The Shadow returned to haunt the boy who refused to grow up. Each night, the Pan sat at the window and carved wooden figures to keep his monsters at bay before they could drown him. The parchment his shadow brought held the cure to the decaying island and he stubbornly refused to open it. He could not tear a heart out of an innocent’s chest and he could not continue lying to the people around him. As of now, his shadow halted the journey of lost children coming to Neverland, and he wasn’t sure if he was worried or relieved.

            Once, he found Wendy swimming alone in a lagoon not far from Skull Rock. Even if Hook and his crew were gone in a different realm, the Pan held his guard with his hand tightly clasped around the handle of his dagger as if the pirates were still there. He couldn’t forget the last time he let a girl go, she was killed by the pirates. His guilt tore at him like a beast pawing at its cage for escape.

            She made no movement when he sat on a rock several feet above her where her night gown lay. He merely cocked an eyebrow when she stood still, paralyzed in the water.

            _“Do you mind? I’m naked,”_ Wendy said.

            The Pan shrugged. _“So? It’s not the first time I’ve seen you naked?”_

            Her cheeks burned a crimson red and she immediately covered her chest with her arms defensively, her eyes wide with shock.

            He smirked lightly. _“I’m joking. I’m up here and you’re down there; I only see your head.”_

            Wendy lowered her arms and relaxed slightly _. “If I find out you’re lying, I won’t hesitate to use your head for target practice.”_

            The Pan snorted and Wendy rolled her eyes. _“Do you need something from me?”_ She asked a moment later.

            _“No, I don’t.”_

            The English girl raised an eyebrow. _“Because,”_ he began as he descended the rocks. He stopped where she stood, neck deep in the dark water and her blue eyes level with his. _“I wanted to see you.”_

_“Is there a reason?”_

_“Do I need a reason?”_

            To that, a small grin cracked her lips and she looked away shyly. When she returned, almost nothing has changed between them. To her, he was still Peter, the boy who was free and held the moon. He teased her more than before, but he kissed her footsteps and gave her the stars.

            But there was a hint of darkness and secrecy to him. Wendy could not ry his gate open, and he could not find the key to open her heart. She knew he was dying – everyone did, and they were too as the belief in Neverland began to wane – but she kept quiet and hid the key deep within her.

            Wendy swam closer to him, her eyes never leaving his. She was stunning in the moonlight, her skin the color of the silver stars and her eyes as clear as the brightest sea. Her hand reached out to him and he slowly leaned forward, his lips ghosting over hers.

            “ _You’re a nightmare Peter,”_ whispered Wendy, her hand resting on the back of his neck.

            The Pan chuckled. _“Then you must be the dreamer. All you have to do is wake up.”_

            She smirked and kissed his lips as she dragged him underwater.

 

 

            It was later that night the Pan opened the parchment. The thought of losing the island terrified him to no end. Who was Peter Pan without Never Neverland? Neverland was his home. He wasn’t going to let his shelter wither or watch his friends wilt to the dying vines in the jungle.

            His nimble fingers trembled nervously as they ran over the portrait. The Pan did not recognize his round face or neatly combed hair. The boy held a faint trace of a smile in his eyes and a blush in his youthful cheeks. He was younger than he imagined he would be, around twelve or thirteen, but there was something about the boy’s eyes that unsettled him. He’d seen them before, but he did not know where.

_“Pan-“_

            He turned abruptly and rolled the parchment behind him. Felix stood at the top of the ladder, his grey irises blown with white fear and uncertainty.

            _“What is it Felix?”_ Pan asked alarmed. He’d never seen Felix like this before. The last time he was afraid was at Rufio and Tiger Lily’s death.

            _“Wendy,”_ he stammered after a moment. _“She was with Slightly. Something happened, but I don’t know what. Tink found her unconscious and I ran as fast as I could-“_

            He stormed out of the tree house as if fire bit his legs with nails. He did not hear Felix calling out to him or Tink’s words of warning as he drew near. Her blonde hair was a mess and her cheeks were stained with dirt and tears as the Pan approached in seething rage. All he saw was blood red and simmered with the rage of a thousand beasts as he neared. The Lost Boys repelled as if struck by the lightning storm of his anger.

            At Tink’s side, Wendy lay with glazed blue eyes and an open bleeding wound on her arm.

            “ _Where’s Slightly?”_ demanded Pan, his voice barely above a whisper.

            It was Curly who spoke. _“He, he ran-“_

_“To where?”_

_“To Mermaid’s Lagoon, I think,”_ answered Tootles hastily with nervousness.

            The Pan grinned darkly. Something grim flickered in his green eyes as the Boys pulled themselves further away in to the sanctuary of the shadows. One of the Twins whimpered quietly; it was Felix who shielded him from the Pan’s wrath and quieted him.

            _“Peter-“_ Tink began, her voice rising.

            _“He won’t get far,”_ the Pan said smugly as he twirled his dagger between his fingers. “He won’t.”

           

Slightly collapsed with his heart in dusty ashes in his chest as he fell to the ground, his lips parted open in a frozen scream right beside the rocks of the Lagoon. A mermaid with vibrant red hair wrapped her hands around his throat and pulled him under.

 

* * *

 

 

The king can rule, but only the queen conquers. The bird queen slept on her throne that dangled from the tree branches, her walls made of brittle bamboo sticks tied with withering weeds. White pure flowers blossomed in her fair hair as she breathed her cheeks a dusty shade of a baby rose. She was beautiful and breathtaking, but the queen would eventually awaken. The fury of a queen could not be contained by foolish bamboo sticks and roots.

Felix was the first to experience her wrath. She spotted the lieutenant seated at the base of the tree as he absentmindedly threw knives in to the tree perpendicular from him, his elbows resting on his knees with the white silhouette of a pirate traced in to the trunk. A red target resided in its chest, filled with a handful of knives that penetrated through the center.

 _“You can’t keep me here,”_ Wendy taunted as she snapped a bamboo stick with her fingers.

The lieutenant made no sudden movement. He merely canted his head, his messy blonde hair barely covering the red glistening scar on his face. He did not look amused.

 _“No one is stopping you, Darling,”_ he simply answered. He took another knife and threw the knife at the target once more. It hit its throat.

Wendy stared at him silently as he stood with his bat resting over his shoulder. Before he walked forward, he turned to her with a sad smile, a rare sight. _“He’s doing it to protect you.”_

 He disappeared in to the jungle. The bird queen hesitated briefly and sat on her knees, her hands fumbling with the lock. The triumphant click confirmed his statement.

 

 

Wendy never saw the Pan for a fortnight, but she heard about him. The Lost Boys often lingered by her cage as his pawns, they often forgot she was in her cage as they whispered about their king. He was searching for someone desperately, titled the Truest Believer, the one who would obtain their salvation. His heart would cure the disease of the island and Neverland will prosper once more under the golden light of the burning sun, but Wendy was repulsed at the thought of a sacrificial heart. This boy wasn’t _God_ , but a _boy._

The Boys never mistreated her, but she caught their hands trembling beneath their capes in her presence. There was a hurricane of wrath that splintered inside of her and threatened to destroy anyone in her path. Her eyes held blue fury and her lips held anger of a thousand swans thirsty for blood. She was a beast that could not be tamed, not even the savage island of Neverland could contain her. But Wendy grew fearful of the black widow that grew inside her as she watched the venom enter her blood. She did not recognize this girl. The ghost of young and innocent Wendy Darling was long gone.

She managed to escape the cage one night when no one was on patrol. The sun stopped rising a decade back, and the glow of the moon was the only source of light that guided her path. She practiced picking the lock with shattered pieces of bamboo from the cage. It was not the first time she unlocked the cage; she was reluctant to leave, afraid to encounter the Pan. Don’t be childish, she chided. The Boys who camped nearby failed to notice, but if they did (she was never discreet about it. Surely, Nibs or Felix knew), no one said a word. Whether that was a good or bad thing, she didn’t know.

The bird queen was consumed by the shadow of the lingering vines toward her way to the lagoon. Wendy constantly glanced over her shoulder in fear of someone following her. Even if she saw no one, she still felt a pair of eyes burning her wings through the dark.

A mile away from the lagoon, a sharp pain bit in to her chest. Numbed by the furious sting, Wendy crashed in to the ground with a loud cry and choked as she struggled to breathe. Her vision blurred in to dots of black widows flashing before her eyes among the black, silver, and green painted shapes she could not decipher. Her chest tightened and her bones were weightless.

As fast as it came, it faded in to nothing.

_“You felt it too?”_

Wendy whipped her head toward the sound of his voice. The Pan sat on a tree branch with his legs dangling freely from the edge, his pipe in his hands. He was different from when she saw him last, she barely recognized him. The boy king was paler with skin as white as a ghost and the bags under his eyes were as dark as the bottom of the ocean. His bones were sharper beneath the leaves, the cut of his cheekbones too jagged, and his lips kissed with a light shade of blue. She could count the veins on his hand.

The bird queen narrowed her eyes at him dangerously, keeping her distance from him.  _“It’s nice to finally see the one who holds me captive.”_

_“Captive? You’re free to leave your cage whenever you wish, bird.”_

_“Whenever_ I _wish? You evil boy-“_

Pan leapt from the tree and stood directly in front of her, their skeletons centimeters apart. Wendy swallowed hard and glanced at him with a small trace of nervousness creeping down her spine from the coldness radiating from his body _. “You left, didn’t you?”_

Aghast, the English girl quickly retreated from his frozen air and shook her head. _“I don’t understand you at all Peter.”_

(She felt anger and contempt soar viciously within her, like a monster begging for release-)

There is something unsettling in his forest eyes, a flicker of concern and a false perception of mistaken apathy. _“You don’t remember, do you?”_

_“Remember what?”_

It was a strange sight to see the ever so haughty and confident Pan hesitate with uncertainty. A feigned smile stretched on his lips like a knife carved in his flesh.

_“Perhaps it’s better if you don’t.”_

Wendy stared at him in disbelief. _“What is it? Stop with these riddles, Peter Pan!”_ She yelled in frustration, her hands fisted at her sides. _“What is it you are not telling me? Do you think me weak and stupid?”_

“No, no!” The Pan grimaced sadly. _“Wendy, the Truest Believer is coming very soon. It will only be less than a decade-“_ he stopped, struggling to find the right words _. “When he comes, I promise you that I will tell you. Drag me to the Echo Caves for all I care, but I promise you the truth.”_

She held her gaze at his unfaltering eyes. _“Why should I?”_

_“Have I broken any of my promises?”_

Her silence was the only answer needed. Was it true that Pan held such a secret that it must be hidden?

The Pan put a finger to his lips. _“Believe me,”_ he whispered. _“Please believe in me.”_

 

* * *

 

 

The Pan has not slept since the day the sun last shined in Neverland, long after the death of the crowed girl. He visits the bed of poppies and tiger lilies near the rocks and often finds Felix and tink reverencing their fallen companions. Tink is the one who stays by his side on nights when he is plagued with terrors of gunshots and drowning. The dream catcher that Felix once had has done no justice, leaving him in a reality far worse than his greatest bane.

Her brothers are alive, but he does not tell her. She rarely sits in her cage and spends her days running through the jungle with bright flowers in her hair as he chases her from the shadows. The Pan once saw a ghost of a smile on her lips, but knew deep in his heart that she cannot feel the same.

The Truest Believer is easy to convince and fool, easily falling under his trap without needing to lift a finger. But the boy startled the Pan the first time he saw him with big round innocent eyes and a face filled with childish wonder. The boy terrified him as he led him under his wing to join the infamous Lost Boys that children dreamed of belonging; was he doing the right thing?

There are adults on the island. The moment the Jolly Roger reached the ocean of Neverland, the ship was lit on fire by the burning arrows that raged in Pan’s fury. The sight of the dark pirate captain trying to woo the blonde princess sickened and disgusted him, causing him to turn away and inflict harm on her father with the deadly Dream Shade. No one was safe under the Pan’s wrath. This is war.

 

***

 

The Pan senses and sees him before he does. He lingers behind the rocks as he watches the man brush the paint over his eyes beside the fire. His eyes grow dim as his knuckles turn white from his grip on the boulders, his blood boiling. This man is not the same man who once held him beside the white curtained window. He was gone, and so was the boy who ran away from home. How ironic it was that his father would return to fetch his grandson. It sickened him.

            Finally, the Pan moves forward. His father’s eyes are closed as he faces the wall, it is ridiculous to see him in such a state. The Pan laughs.

            _“You can’t see the future here,”_ he says lowly as he circles him, _“not in a place where time stands still.”_

            The man crawls out of his skin and stares at him in shock, but the look in his eyes cloud with remorse and guilt.

            The Pan chuckles. _“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Father? Should I call you that? Or do you prefer the Dark One?”_

            A flicker of anger dances across his brown eyes, but it is suppressed by familiarity and guilt. _“Malcolm-“_

 _“Malcolm is dead!”_ The Pan shouts furiously.

            The man falls silent, but his eyes never leave his face.

            The Pan shakes his head and circles him _. “You’ve changed Rumpel,”_ he says smugly. _“How does it feel to be feared, hmm? How does it feel to see the people you love look at you differently, to despise and hate you, just like-“_

            He stops. A small pain echoes in his chest. Someone has arrived on the island.

            Rumplestilskin beckons toward him. _“Pan,”_ he says quietly, as if comforting a small child. _“You don’t have to do this. I know-“_

            _“I’m nothing more than your bastard,”_ the Pan snarls angrily. _“I wish I forgot about you. I did once. You and Milah never wanted me. Don’t lie to me, Rumpel. I’m not a fool.”_

            His father says nothing and glares at him. _“What do you plan to do with the boy? Lay a finger on him, and I’ll end you.”_

            The Pan tilts his head back and laughs. _“You’ll_ end _me? You can’t destroy what has already been dead,”_ he grins maliciously and whistles. _“Oh Rumpel, you’ll just have to wait and see if you live long enough.”_

            The shadow appears behind him and charges at the man with the paint.

            _“Won’t this be a grand family reunion?_ ” The Pan laughs manically and disappears in to the dark savage hands of Neverland.

 

[♜]

 

            The Pan watches the adults gather around the fire and sleep with their loved ones. He looks at them in disgust and turns away with green envy; this boy they’re fighting for is loved and wanted by the people who yearn for him. The boy king laughs at the word; such a pleasant euphemism for heartbreak.

            He doesn’t move when he walks towards him; he does not even blink or acknowledge his presence. He merely looks up as the Pan squats besides the cage with a forced smile to mask his anger burning within. The man inside the cage looks away and leans back against the walls of bamboo sticks.

            “ _Save yourself an elaborate speech on how you plan to kill me if I harm him,”_ Pan says before his brother speaks. _“I know how it’ll end. But you wouldn’t kill family, would you, brother?”_

            Baelfire rattles the cage with fury, his hand locked around his brother’s throat. _“What the hell do you know about family, Pan?”_

            The Pan narrows his eyes at him and viciously tears his hand away from his pale throat, but his bruises and fingerprints remain on his pale skin. _“Family doesn’t reject or abandon anyone! Look at what father did to_ us _, Baelfire. Or should I call you Neal?”_

            His brother glares at him hard, his jaw clenched. _“What have you done to Wendy?”_

 _“Wendy?”_ Pan repeats, confused and slightly caught off guard. _“I’ve done nothing to her.”_

            Baelfire laughs and shakes his head. _“You can’t leave the Echo Caves without revealing a secret. You should know better.”_

            Green eyes grow dark. “ _You want to know my secret, Bae?”_ He leans forward, his anger and wrath reflected in his forest irises. _“Wendy is my secret. She can’t leave this island.”_

            Baelfire falls silent.

            Pan laughs bitterly, his eyes stinging with tears as he looks away _. “There. Now you know.”_ A sob rips through his throat and he covers it with a dark chuckle, a stray tear falling down his cheek. _“I ruined her Baelfire,”_ he bites his lip and avoids his gaze. _“She ruined me. She broke my heart, Bae. I have to save her.”_

            His brother did not need an explanation. He already knows.

 

 

            He finds the bird in his Thinking Tree the moment Henry leaves. His footsteps echo quietly in the hollow tree house and he sees her in her old white night gown on the bed beneath the quilts. She glares at him with a spark of loathing in her blue eyes, her lips settled in a frown.

            _“I don’t like lying to him,”_ she says bluntly when he approaches.

            He places his hands on the foot of the bed and leans forward. In the dim light of the torch that hangs in the window, she sees the traces of red swollen eyes beneath the fire. _“Don’t think of it as lying,”_ he says lowly. _“Think of it as motivation.”_

            _“Motivation for what?”_ She counters.

            _Don’t you know? For you._ The Pan smiles tightly _. “Doing what needs to be done, for all of us. He has the Heart of the Truest Believer and I need to control that belief,”_ the Pan explains simply. He watches her carefully as she shifts beneath the sheets, her skin as pale as the glow of the moon.

            _“What do you need him to believe in?”_

 _“Me,”_ the Pan tightens his grip around the dark rails of the bed and tries to suppress his spiraling emotions. He’s nearly an open book to her.

            Wendy narrows her gaze at him. _“He looks just like him. I’m tired of playing your games Peter. I want answers.”_

            The Pan swallows hard and shifts his weight nervously under her burning stare. _“Please believe in me, Wendy,_ please _.”_

            The bird queen holds her eyes and briefly looks down under his invisible touch. _“You promised me an answer in the Echo Caves a decade ago,”_ she whispers quietly. _“I know you never break your promises. Please Peter, I need to know.”_

            The Pan bites his lip and sits on the edge of the bed. She tilts her head and faces him, her curious blue eyes filled with desperation and hope. He couldn’t tell her, not until he saved her.

            He smiles lightly and brushes her hair out of her face, pressing a small gentle kiss on her forehead. She sighs quietly and leans her head against his chest, right above his beating heart. The Pan reluctantly wraps his arms around her and strokes her head, his chin resting on top of her light colored waves.

            _“I once met a girl that I couldn’t catch. She was always running and had a pair of white wings on her back, like a guardian angel trapped on Earth. She was beautiful, far more beautiful than all the light of the suns and moons in the universe. I fell in love with her, but she was out of my reach.”_

            Wendy shifts lightly and looks up at him. His eyes are red and his gaze fixed on the dream catcher above the bed. _“Peter-“_

            “ _But not all angels contain their purity. There was a little elfish boy who poisoned her. She fell ill and immediately, her wings were clipped.”_

            The bird queen silences her sob and presses her palm hard against her mouth.

            _“I had to save her,”_ his voice cracks and his hands tremble. Tears cascade down his cheeks and he closes his eyes, his head bowed in shame. _“I couldn’t let her die.”_

 _“Peter,” Wendy_ pulls away from him and cups his face, forcing him to look at her. _“I would recall my own death.”_

            He chokes on a sob as he grasps her hands lightly _. “Do you remember that night when you and Slightly were at the lagoon? The night before you woke in the cage, do you remember?”_

            Wendy searches for any lies in his heartbroken green eyes, but finds none. She swallows hard and tries to remember, but it’s all a blur. She closes her eyes, her forehead pressed against his with a hand over his heart.

            _“I was with Slightly,”_ she starts. She vaguely remembers him walking with her in the jungle, but he kept his distance. _“He was quiet. I was thirsty and asked him if I could stop by the lagoon for a drink. He said he already had a canteen filled with water and gave it to me.”_

            The picture becomes clearer as she speaks. _“He…he looked strange. I remember I said something about it and he laughed as I drank the water. Suddenly, I felt dizzy and I fell. There was a pain in my arm,”_ she shakes her head and looks up at Peter, her eyes filled with sorrow. _“That’s all I remember. I’m sorry.”_

            Peter gently pulls on her arm and turns it over, tracing the scar over her vein. _“Did you ever wonder where you got this scar_?” He asks quietly.

            Wendy stares at him, suddenly seeing a white jagged scar she had never seen before. The seizures. The nightmares. The scars. The pain.

            Peter grips her hands in his. _“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,”_ he whispers quietly, his lips quivering _. “I’m sorry.”_

 _“Peter, please tell me this is a lie._ Please _tell-“_

            Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot rings through the air. Footsteps angrily storm towards the tree house followed by the screams and shrieks of fairies and Lost Boys. Peter automatically grabs Wendy as they hastily rise from the bed, but it happens too fast.

            The adults find them. Strong hands pull him away from her and Wendy screams, her hair yanked back by an adult. His head collides with a bat and he falls to the ground with blood trickling down the side of his skull, his body cold and weak.

            _“NO!”_ Wendy screams and struggles beneath a pair of strong dark arms, tears streaming down her cheeks. _“LET ME GO!”_

            A familiar voice laughs in her ear. _“It’s quite a pleasure to see you too,_ Jill. _”_

            Her eyes widen in horror at the sound of his voice as his silver hook presses in to her throat.

            Peter watches her from the ground, his head numb and his mouth filled with the metallic taste of his own blood. He coughs and vomits on the ground, his cheek smeared in a pool of spit and blood. The rusty smell stings his nose as he revolts from the sight, his arms barely able to pull him from the ground.  

            He sees her screaming and crying. Anger surges within him at the sight of the hook against her throat. He opens his mouth and tells him to release her, his heart yearning to tell her the truth that his heart is hers. His heart is the one that fails to give her life.

            There’s another shout. The adults gather in the tree house and suddenly, he hears a masculine voice shout his name. His head is pulled back by another. Wendy sobs and is held back with his younger brother as they protest and scream, begging for the man behind him to let him go.

            Peter tries to speak, but blood continues to spill from his mouth. He cries as his hair is fisted and a black gun tossed before his eyes. He was weak. He failed. He couldn’t save Tiger Lily. He couldn’t save Rufio. He couldn’t save Tink. He couldn’t save Wendy. He couldn’t even save himself.

            _“Go ahead crocodile,”_ Hook urges. _“Do it.”_

            His father presses the barrel of the gun against his son’s temple.

            Baelfire shouts and Wendy screams. Peter holds his brother’s gaze, his eyes filled with unspeakable pain.

            _“To die,”_ Peter whispers to himself with a sad smile _, “would be an awfully big adventure.”_

            The bullet enters his skull.

            Baelfire sees his brother’s life flash before him. Towering trees. Black raven feathers. Red hair. Silver wings. Golden dust. Wide blue eyes. The window with white shutters. Wendy with the sun in her hair.

            His queen collapses beside her fallen king.

            Then it’s all over.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I warned you that this does not have a happy ending.
> 
> 2\. I just realized someone dies in every chapter I am so sorry
> 
> 3\. I originally had something else written in my notebook but when I transferred it to my PC my finger slipped and this happened
> 
> 4\. At least Tink and Felix live so they have their happy ending?
> 
> 5\. Reviews are like thimbles. They make you turn pink and feel fuzzy on the inside :)


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